The present invention is concerned with equipment for loading and unloading cargo and more particularly for a rotatable and articulated material handling apparatus mounted on a vehicle.
Equipment used for loading and unloading material, such as cargo containers, typically utilize an L-shaped, hooked arm that engages the container and pulls it up onto a vehicle. Offloading occurs in the reverse of such procedure to offload a container from a vehicle. Such container manipulating equipment, although may be articulated to a certain degree, more conventionally are fixed with the movable hooked arm that moves in a high arc during at least a portion of the cargo loading and unloading procedure. Such high arc movement prevents a vehicle equipped with such a cargo handling equipment from loading or unloading an aircraft, such as a C-130 cargo aircraft.
A typical procedure for loading or unloading a C-130 aircraft requires a vehicle carrying the container to offload the container outside of the aircraft and then requires a second piece of equipment, such as a crane or a forklift truck, to move the container to the aircraft and loading into the aircraft. Such multiple handling is expensive and time consuming.
Thus there is a need for a material handling system that has an operation range profile that will allow the loading and unloading of aircraft without the need for additional equipment. There is further a need for a material handling system that can load or unload the material from the side of a vehicle on which the apparatus is mounted. There is further need for the material handling apparatus that can be used in a push-pull mode.